Free The Pact by Monica McKayhan

the car.
    “Trish here?” Sabrina asked as she headed up the walkway.
    “She in the house.” A tall, slender man pointed toward the door and offered us something to drink. “Y’all want a beer?”
    “No thanks,” we said in unison, and stepped into the house.
    People in the living room sat around on sofas and talked loud enough to be heard over the music. Four people sat at the kitchen table playing dominoes. In the backyard, several others danced to the sounds of Snoop, while two guys flipped burgers on a barbecue grill.
    “Sabrina, girl, what’s up?” A short, dark girl with gold extensions in her hair walked toward us. Her long fingers were wrapped around a red plastic cup, and each long nail had a different design.
    “Trish, what’s good?” Sabrina asked her.
    “It’s all good.” Trish smiled, and that was when I noticed the gold tooth in the front of her mouth. It was not attractive at all.
    “That’s what’s up.” My cousin gave Trish a tight squeeze. “This is my cousin Indigo. Indigo, meet Trish.”
    “Hi,” I said.
    “What’s up, girl?” Trish smiled my way. “Y’all hungry?”
    “Starving,” Sabrina answered for both of us.
    “Come on. The food’s inside.”
    We followed Trish back into the kitchen, where she pulled a roasting pan filled with barbecued ribs and chicken out of the oven. She handed us a couple of paper plates and forks, and it wasn’t long before both plates were overflowing with food. Trish poured us each a cup of Kool-Aid, and we stood around in the kitchen eating barbecue and watching as people slammed dominoes onto the table.
    Before long, we were all in the middle of the floor doing the Cupid Shuffle. It was fun hanging out with Sabrina and her friends. My friends in Atlanta were nothing like this.

Chapter 10
    Marcus
    The sound of knocking shook me out of my sleep, and I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. Nine-thirty. I wiped sleep from my eyes and sat up on the side of the bed. I grabbed a T-shirt, pulled it over my head and headed for the door. Peeked through the peephole. Swung the door open.
    “What’s up with you knocking on my door at the crack of dawn every morning?” I asked Michelle.
    “Marcus, it’s way past dawn. It’s almost ten o’clock,” Michelle said. “Guess what?”
    “What?”
    “Guess,” she insisted.
    “Just tell me.”
    “I got tickets to see Lil Wayne on Friday night…at the Toyota Center!”
    “Seriously?”
    “Front-row seats and backstage passes, too,” she said, and held the tickets in the air. “You wanna go?”
    “No doubt.” I snatched them from her, just to see if they were real.
    They were real, all right. I handed them back.
    “Cool, we can go, then,” Michelle said, and stepped inside. She went straight for the kitchen. “Your mom didn’t make us pancakes this morning?”
    “She never made us pancakes in the first place. Those were my pancakes that you grubbed on the other day.”
    “That’s okay, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal.” She giggled, and then pulled a bowl from the shelf. She looked in the pantry and found a box of Fruity Pebbles.
    “Why don’t you just make yourself at home?” I said sarcastically, and shook my head as Michelle did just that.
    I made my way down the hallway and into the bathroom, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I went into my bedroom and grabbed my watch, slipped it onto my wrist. Glanced out the window at the pool. Rena was in her lifeguard uniform, sitting on her throne—her lifeguard chair. She put her whistle in her mouth, blew it and yelled at some kid. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I watched her as she climbed down from the chair and went for a swim. I wanted to be next to her again and decided that I should go for a swim—just as soon as I got rid of Michelle.
    She was already crunching on Fruity Pebbles and flipping through the channels on the television when I walked back into the room.
    “This video is so hot!” Michelle said.